Capitol Insiders

Hoping to douse a political firestorm that has sprung up in some conservative circles, Gov. Jan Brewer ordered state employees Friday to begin calling the state’s learning standards by a different name.

After four weeks and three meetings of a task force with intentions to reform, tweak, or overhaul Arizona’s personal income tax system, the members of the group don’t seem closer to deciding what, exactly, they want to accomplish.

Hoping to raise more cash, lawmakers instead face new limits

An oversight during the legislative session has made Arizona’s new campaign finance system much more complicated than anyone intended, leaving incumbent legislators and potential candidates scrambling to grasp its implications and comply with its provisions. Already, the law’s author is calling these unintended consequences “a nightmare.”
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The same well-funded, national organization that ushered Arizona’s medical marijuana law onto the books in 2010 already plans to return for a 2016 full-legalization effort. But that just isn’t soon enough for some local activists.

In the aftermath of the Yarnell Hill Fire that consumed the lives of 19 firefighters, Arizona lawmakers are facing difficult decisions about what responsibility the state should have to provide benefits to fallen first responders.

The Arizona Department of Transportation formally banned driver’s licenses for all illegal immigrants who received deferred action from the federal government, potentially heading off a federal court ruling against a similar policy for children who were brought to the country illegally.